Terminal Lance is a bi-weekly webcomic by Terminal Lance Corporal Maximilian Uriarte, USMC (retired). It draws on Uriarte's experiences as a Lance Corporal in the infantry. Think a Work Com, but set in the military.

Uriarte has also produced an animated short called Post, which bears the Terminal Lance brand but does not feature the same characters (or rather, if it does, it's hard to tell.)

Most of the humor is related to life in the Corps. Non-Marines are advised to have a reference (or a Marine friend to act as translator) handy for all the acronyms and expressions that appear.

In 2016, The White Donkey, a more serious graphic novel based on his experiences in Iraq, was published, funded by a Kickstarter campaign.

Terminal Lance contains examples of:

A Date with Rosie Palms: A common hobby of marines. You better believe that looking at normal porn is the one of the more normal things to happen in the strip.

Always a Bigger Fish: In this strip, a bunch of lower-level enlisted personnel get to enjoy seeing their Gunnery Sergeant being chewed out by a more senior NCO instead of being the one giving the chewing-out to the lower-level enlisted. The title for that page is, to make the point of the strip obvious, "The Bigger Fish".

Bathroom Stall Graffiti: "Wagner Loves The Cock". According to Uriarte, this particular saying is Real Life bit of Memetic Mutation in the Marine Corps. Nobody seems to know where or when it got started. In fact, according to the comic, it is impossible for a Marine to sit in a bathroom stall with a marker without either writing this message, or drawing a penis on the stall, whether that Marine is male or female.

Important Haircut: The "high and tight" is treated as a subversion, especially after the pleasantness of the "medium reg" is discovered.

Interservice Rivalry: Within the Corps, between POGs and grunts. Uriarte naturally takes the side of the grunts. He especially doesn't like the "Water Dogs" (Marine plumbers), though at one point he also mocks the grunts who think anyone who does technical/repair work is an immediate POG.

Irony: Shortly after he left the military, Max was finally promoted to Corporal. Long after he had become the creator of Terminal Lance. He believes it's more of the military screwing with him.

Part of this is on account of high tenure, wherein you get a small separation bonus when forced out of service for not making rank. Max made rank, and therefor lost the bonus.

Of course, being a Marine, he'll take potshots at the Army and the Air Force as well.

"Join the Army," They Said: #28: "False Advertising". First panel: Marine grunt in combat. Second panel: Three Marines in dress uniform with ceremonial rifles, with the "The Few. The Proud." recruiting slogan across it. Third panel: Guy in fatigues standing in front of a recruiting poster with a mop. The Rant even says that "making fun of the cheesy recruiting commercials is one of the favorite pass times [sic] of Marines."

Mop guy: Well anything seems cool if you say it like that...

Lethal Chef: Naturally, military food and the ever-popular MRE get a few jokes at their expense.

Limited Advancement Opportunities: The name Terminal Lance refers to Marines whose climb up the rank ladder has stalled at Lance Corporal (just below NCO status), often because the score required for promotion in their career specialty is ridiculously high (or the Corps just plain refuses to accept any new Corporals in that specialty). Ironically, Uriarte was ultimately promoted to Corporal, but didn't find out about it until three months after he left the Corps. In keeping with the tradition of referring to oneself by rank, he calls himself "Terminal Lance Corporal Maximilian Uriarte, USMC".

LCPL. (ret.) Max Uriarte: Back to the sword though, it's one of those things that I don't even know what the fuck it's really for. Obviously you can't go around racking up confirmed sword kills in Afghanistan, so it's really just a useless ceremonial item that no one would ever willingly pay for.

No Name Given: Abe and Garcia are only ever known by their nickname (Abe) or their last name (Garcia). Their full names are given in the "Revenge of the Dependapotamus" PDF comics: Abe's last name is Belatzeko, and Garcia's first name is Jesus. At least in Abe's case it seems to be that no one can pronounce his last name right, which is based on Uriarte's own experience of people mispronouncing his last name while he was in active service.

Uriarte: "This mouth-breathing idiocy completely fails to acknowledge the fact that Marines of today have been engaged in war for over 10 years straight now. My Marine Corps was a culture of war. Your Marine Corps was a culture of drill maneuvers and liberty risks."

Serious Business: Uriarte notes in the blog post for this strip that Marines will argue about pretty much anything to get away from the boredom of everyday life in the Corps, and they'll stick to their guns no matter how pointless the argument is.

Shout-Out: Most of the titles of the comics. The subtitle of the website itself is a line from one of The Killers' most popular songs.

Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Boots and the newly promoted often have much motivation and the belief that they can change the Corps and have a good time. Such "moto" dies out in time.

Sir Swears-a-Lot: Exaggerated and parodied here. And only very slightly exaggerated, too, if the video in the accompanying rant is any indication.

Splash of Color: The comic is done in black and white, with the exception generally being reflective belts (always very bright yellow, regardless of it being relevant or not). Other one-off splashes of color include service ribbons in some strips, a candy wrapper, and a green Clone-A-Willy.

Uriarte: “I would have told him to fuck off and hold his own umbrella.” No you wouldn’t. Shut up. We’re Marines, if the President of the fucking United States asks you to hold a fucking umbrella, you hold a fucking umbrella. [...] He’s the President, he rates an umbrella. Get over it.

Thirsty Desert: The Marine base at Twentynine Palms is in the middle of the desert, a good two to three hour drive from any off-base amusements, and generally an unpleasant place to be (even worse if one is permanently stationed there). Uriarte calls it one of the most miserable permanent duty stations in the Corps. In one of the blog posts, he even calls the base Satan's Asshole in jest.

Took a Level in Cynic: The strip generally portrays the boot, the newbies, as a Butt MonkeyNaďve Newcomer. Over time, he'll slowly get more cynical, with the worst being a Lance Corporal. Eventually, once he leaves the military, he'll be back to normal.

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